The six-centimetre-thick manual on killing, found in an abandoned bomb laboratory here early this month, offers instruction in al-Qaeda’s array of lethal demolition skills. With a text in Arabic complemented by diagrams from United States military manuals, the document offers lessons for rigging explosives, setting and concealing booby traps, and wiring an alarm clock to detonate a bomb. The book is a photocopy of one volume of the Jihad Encyclopedia, the technical manual that US officials have said is used by al-Qaeda in its war against the West. The copy was found in this valley in the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq. It was recovered by Kurdish security officials accompanied by a reporter in a training centre operated by Ansar al-Islam, a local armed party. US military officials say the materials are significant because they show that al-Qaeda can now export its training lessons. Interviews with prisoners and translations of documents and computer disks show Ansar possessed manuals from al-Qaeda in printed and digital form, ran two training bases with curriculums strikingly similar to those taught in Afghan camps, and managed its affairs much as al-Qaeda did. Full Story
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